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Tomato, Olive and Nigella seed griddle bread

Ingredients

150 g of any white wheat flour

50 g of any wholemeal wheat flour (extra coarse flour adds volume and texture so works well for this bread)

6 grams of bicarbonate of soda

Salt and black pepper to taste

One heaped teaspoon of nigella seed

Chopped olives of any variety, quantity is a personal preference.

120 ml milk (I use soya milk)

20 ml lemon juice

45 g of tomato paste

Variations

The bread will work equally well if you want to experiment with a greater wholemeal content but will be a bit denser. It's also delicious with the addition of the Shipton Mill 5 seed blend to taste. If you don't like olives it's still very tasty when omitted.

Method

Blend dry ingredients together

Add the chopped olives just before adding the wet ingredients and mix in well

Mix milk, lemon juice and tomato paste together and allow the milk to curdle. This happens quickly because the tomato paste adds an additional acidic ingredient to the lemon juice

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix quickly forming roughly into a round ball

Turn out on a floured surface then dust the top with flour and form a rough circle by hand about 2 cm high. The circle of dough should be about 20 cm in diameter. Cut into quarters. It's best to work quickly because the bicarbonate will activate as soon as the wet ingredients are added

Place in a covered pan preheated and lightly dusted with flour. I use a non stick saucepan with a glass lid, if the dusting flour burns you know the heat is too high. When a light mist forms on the inside of the lid and you can smell the flour then you know the pan is ready for baking.

Turn the bread when it is still slightly sticky and moisture is starting to form on the inside of the lid, it should have a crust on the cooked side and sound hollow when tapped. It takes another 3-5 minutes to cook the reverse side. There's a bit of trial and error involved depending on the type of pan and the kind of element you cook on so best to check a few times until you're used to your set up.

The resulting bread is rustic and fairly dense, it's best eaten within a day or so as will go stale quite quickly and is delicious lightly toasted. I find it works very well sliced down the middle. The recipe as stated produces approximately a 400 g or half size loaf. This size works well in a standard size saucepan.